Grocers are poised for Facebook greatness.

Some brands struggle to find purpose on social media. For lack of relatable brand content, they resort to posting random memes, celebrating obscure holidays and sharing inspirational quotes. It can be painful to watch.

They must envy grocers. Most community managers would gladly surrender five years of brand content for the content potential on just one shelf of the cereal aisle. “What’s in your bowl?” “Bran. It’s not just for breakfast.” “Are you more Captain Crunch or Tony the Tiger?”

More than content, grocers have the benefit of a highly motivated audience. Consumers don’t have to be baited into liking grocer pages. They naturally seek them out, according to an FMI study.

About half (53 percent) of all shoppers—especially younger Millennials—connect with food retailers through social media. Seventy-three percent of Millennials (age 18-27 in 2017) and 59 percent of Gen Xers (age 38-51 in 2017) are influenced by social media.

Not just any social media. Facebook is the preferred channel for grocery shoppers of all generations. Millennials use it most, followed by Gen Xers, Boomers and Matures. They use social to scout sales and promotions (73 percent) and new products (72 percent), and to find recipes (59 percent). This according to a separate study by UPS called Pulse of the Online Shopper.

What are grocers doing with all that potential? Not nearly enough, per yet another study by Retail Feedback Group (RFG).

RFG found that while most (87 percent) supermarket shoppers follow one or more social media channels, just 25 percent have friended or connected to their primary grocery store. This is most likely because grocers are not claiming their Pages or spending scant resources to manage them.

Enough already.

Attention Grocers: Your consumers want to be (Facebook) friends

It’s time to get serious about social media, else customers may fall in “like” with a competitor. Data suggest Facebook is the most popular platform for grocery shopping, so start there. If you’ve already claimed your business page and just need a little inspiration, skip to number 2 below. If this is all still very new to you, begin at the top.

Claim your page. Facebook created a step-by-step tutorial for just this occasion. You’ll need a profile picture, which will serve as the main icon of your page. The icon is square. Obvious choices are brand logo or store name. You’ll also want to have a cover photo handy. This is the dominant image that stretches across the top of your Facebook page. The official dimensions are 851x315 pixels. This is prime real estate and should be reserved for marketing campaigns and longer-term promotions.

Evaluate your resources. Identify a champion who will be responsible for managing the page. It will be their job to regularly update and post to the page and follow user activity. This position is known as the community manager. Identify a backup community manager in the event of illness, vacation or job change. The community manager will likely come from your marketing team as social media is part of the marketing function.

Follow the competition. Peruse a few months or more of the competition’s Facebook feed. Look for posts that generate significant engagement, as well as campaign themes and regular promotions.

Develop a plan. Facebook business pages come with lots of features--analytics, reporting, security and access, and more. Take the time to understand how to manage the platform and how you’ll measure success before diving into content. Pay close attention to analytics, reporting and access. Once you understand the tools, create a plan that includes cadence (how often you’ll post weekly), communication (your ideal response time), and monitoring (how you’ll keep abreast of activity and respond to both positive and negative comments).

Create a content calendar. Everything on Facebook is content—copy, images, video. It’s all considered content. This is what your consumers are craving. Start with a quarter, just three months of content. Original content is ideal because it will be most relevant to your followers. But it’s okay to share complementary content once or twice a week from brands that you carry. Your content calendar should support your marketing strategy. Think in terms of sales goals and traffic.

Promote your page. Boosting posts can be an effective and inexpensive way to advertise outside of your fan base. This video explains how to boost a post in under two minutes.

Topic

Related Blog Posts...

Wish you could create more followers? These influencers do, and Instagram is not having it. The social network still triumphs over Snapchat, which is still finding its groove to please advertisers. Can’t beat the heat?...

Whether you love, hate, or love to hate Snapchat’s dancing hot dog guy, you can’t deny that he’s popular. On July 4, one of the first dancing hot dog memes hit Twitter and has captivated consumers ever since. With plenty...

Amazon now has its own social network. Because more channels means more sales. See what we did there with that conjunction? Psychologists say “because” can be a powerful word in marketing. Learn how to wield it well and...

Why Brogan?

Results. Strategic insights that deliver more "aha" moments. Creative that makes an emotional connection. Account service that creates happy clients. And metrics that move your business forward. We guarantee you'll be delighted.

Client Hurrahs

Brogan & Partners has worked on a wide variety of health issues for us over the years. They have not only consistently provided innovative ideas and award winning campaigns, but they continue to help us work towards our overall goal of improving the health of Michigan residents. Their creativity, expertise, and enthusiasm makes them an invaluable partner in our... More

Angela Minicuci

MI Dept. of Health and Human Services

Hiring Brogan & Partners to help Michigan Women’s Foundation create the brand and messaging around the campaign to raise millions of dollars to solve the backlog of untested rape kits in Detroit was a slam dunk! With a well-deserved reputation for getting to the heart of complex and highly-charged issues with clear, action-driven communications, the Brogan team... More

Peg Tallet

Michigan Women's Foundation

A well-oiled machine operates at full performance, fluid and unyielding. At Frankenmuth Insurance we have often referred to Brogan & Partners as a well-oiled machine. Our experience with Brogan has been very strong and successful from the start. We view our partners at Brogan as an extension of our own staff. They are readily available to us at any time and deliver... More

Marcia Merando

Frankenmuth Insurance

When launching a startup, resources are very constrained and a startup has to pick its partners very carefully and with deliberation. There were many services that we have had to forego in the early stages of our company, Memloom. One crucial need, however, was identifying and aligning with a strong marketing partner who could help us with our brand, positioning and... More

Alyssa Martina

Memloom

We have been working with the Brogan team for the past 18 months. The Brogan team has truly been our marketing partner. They guided us through development our brand and messaging. They lead our our website redesign and deployment. And they provide excellent counsel on business development and market entry strategies. More

Matt Ahearn

Conpoto

From the very first meeting we had with Brogan & Partners, it was clear that they had done their research on PREZIO Health, our competitors and the industry. It has been a very positive experience working with the Brogan & Partners team to re-design all of our service and product sheets as well as the total re-design of our website. Their creativity is top-... More